Sunday, January 04, 2009

An Unworkable Theology

A commenter on Stand Firm called my attention to this excellent article by the Very Rev. Dr. Philip Turner on "the working theology of TEC" that appeared in the journal First Things in 2005. I have to confess I had missed it when it appeared; but it is the best, most concise, and well-written explanation of the problem the Episcopal Church faces that I have seen.

Read it here.

2 comments:

Undergroundpewster said...

Thank you so much for pointing this out. What was true then remains true today. I will pass this one on, one to someone doing CPE, one who is planning on going to seminary.

Robert S. Munday said...

A Comment received from "Truth Unites and Divides"

Dear Dean Munday,

Yes, quite right. This is a very good article by Dr. Turner in explicating the unworkable theology as taught, modeled, and lived out in TEc's pulpits and leadership.

I particularly like the clarity in this statement here, "We must say this clearly: The Episcopal Church’s current working theology depends upon the obliteration of God’s difficult, redemptive love in the name of a new revelation."

Yet I would respectfully ask you, Dean Munday, to go beyond the diagnosis (a diagnosis which many others have made over the years) of TEc's spiritual cancer of gross heresy to the utterly critical step of providing a pastoral prescription for the folks who are exposed to the deadly radiation of TEc's apostasy.

It is at this vital juncture where I think Phillip Turner and his ACI colleagues have done a disservice (with perhaps some minor concession made to having good intentions--yet perhaps not when recalling the aphorism that the road to Hades is paved with the best of intentions.)

The ACI scholars have written the following:

"It is a form of delusion and disobedience to place oneself and ones friends outside the judgment God intends for the health of his church."

Quite a statement. What do you think of this biblical refutation of ACI by Fr. Gibson?